


Absent

by hmmomg



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Brain Damage, Car Accidents, Coma, Daydreaming, Dreams, Hallucinations, Kokobop, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Obsession, Physical Trauma, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2018-12-05 13:08:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11578710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hmmomg/pseuds/hmmomg
Summary: When it rains, Sehun has thisdream.





	1. Interference

**Author's Note:**

> this is inspired by that moment in the music video, you know the one. it's pretty free-form and goes some strange places. thank you so much for reading!

_The grass here is soft. His fingers curl, greeting each thin, velvety blade. Someone touches his jaw, brushes gently along his skin. Warmth engulfs him and he leans against the unhurried contact._  
_"Sehun, you have to wake up." He closes his eyes harder and frowns._  
_"No." Bells chime in his ears but, really, it's just the dream laughing. He tastes something sweet on his tongue._  
_"You're cute. I'll see you later, okay?"_  
_"But I just got here." He turns onto his side, toward the voice, reaches out but finds nothing there._  
_"I know. I'm sorry."_  
   He hears rain on the window before, reluctantly, opening his eyes. His phone starts chiming the moment he picks it up to check the time and he just closes his eyes in defeat. Turning the alarm off means he actually has to leave so he just listens to it echo through his empty apartment. More rain falls outside. He licks his lips. His face still feels warm.


	2. Waking Dreams

   Sehun is sitting in class 12 years ago and can barely keep his eyes open. School doesn't interest him like it used to. His head hurts. He touches the forming scar underneath his hair and only wants to be comfortable and unthinking in the hospital again. Thunder rolls outside. He feels like he's awake, but isn't sure. The bell rings.  
   Too many blank faces are in the hallway, but there's one that stands out. Smiling eyes, sly grin. Pushing through the maze of bodies, he tries to follow him, shouts and wants to run. He's engulfed by the moving people. The bell rings.  
   He shakes his head and gathers his things. He doesn't recognize anyone there, but for a second, he sees someone that looks familiar. Sweet voice, welcoming hands. The crowd lets him through easily.  
   "Who are you?"  
   "You know me, Sehun." He holds out a round candy, and he takes it without hesitation. Moves the spongy sweet around with his tongue as it dissolves.  
   "Do I?" He nods and his smile doesn't falter as he eats his own candy.  
   "We just met recently." The bell rings.  
   He blinks hard, once, twice. Leaves the classroom and is surrounded by strangers, but, briefly, sees someone he thinks he knows. Slight frame, stark black hair. He follows him out the doors, through a field, across the railway tracks, farther and farther, always turning back and calling him forward. Sehun continues long after he feels like he should have turned back. Continues until he starts to recognize where they're going, recognizes the stretch of grass he's being led to, the smell of gasoline and smoke. His watch chimes.  
   Jolting awake, he turns it off and the class' focus returns to the teacher. The alarm tells him it's time to take medicine, and the aching pressure in his brain diminishes a little. He studies the other people in the room and wonders what it all means.


	3. High Speed Collision

   Sehun takes another pill, rolls over, falls back asleep.  
_"You're back?"_  
_"I wanted to be with you again," Sehun opens his eyes but doesn't turn his head. Takes in the overcast sky and touches the grass underneath his fingers, "can I stay here forever?"_  
_The dream laughs and he smiles along, in love with the sound._  
_"Wouldn't that be nice? I'm so tired of being alone." He cranes his neck up and to the right, seeing only a familiar crop of black hair, the slope of his forehead, the idea of his body beyond that. This is usually as much as he ever sees in this dream._  
_"Who are you?"_  
_"You know me. You've known me for a long time, Sehun."_  
_"Do I know your name?"_  
_"Did you forget my name again?"_  
_"I m-might've. I don't feel like I've ever known it. I'm sorry."_  
_"Are you feeling alright?"_  
_"My head hurts." Sehun waits for him to say something else, but he never does. He turns the other way, towards the street, and his neck starts to hurt too. In the corner of his eye, he sees the convertible, but it's not in good shape._  
_"Who are you?"_  
_"Sehun, you're scaring me. I just told you."_  
_"No, like, did I know you in real lif-"_  
   Sehun blinks. Looks out the window, then at the room around him. Wants to take another pill but knows that each time he does, the sleep is tortuously shorter, more fleeting. Desperately, he tries to remember if he was ever more than a dream. 


	4. Everyone Knows but You

   "Sir, I can't tell you that information."  
   "It's part of my life, don't I deserve to know?"  
   "Others have a right to privacy, as well. I'm sorry, sir."  
   "Is there anything you can tell me about the other people involved? At all?"  
   "Sir, I can see here, in _your_  records, that you were in a coma and sustained an extensive amount of brain damage in the accident, however, you did not receive adequate follow-up care. I can also see that this isn't the first time you've called this number. I would recommend yo-" Sehun hangs up. Doesn't want to hear it. Closes his eyes and can feel the green upholstery under his fingers, turns his head to admire the darker green metal. It's a beautiful car, but the road is a little too busy, a little too slick from melted snow, a little too- light green grass.  
   They've crashed.  
   His head hurts, a lot. His neck too, and he can't quite focus his vision. He's talking to someone, he thinks, or maybe to himself? The voice sounds like his, but a little different. Just different enough.  
   Is he talking to a real person, a boy his age also involved in the crash, or himself, someone inside his own head?  
   Is this someone he met, or something he _created_?  
   Smoke whirls at the edge of his vision. Sirens. A dim ambulance ride, before a long, unnatural sleep.  
   Did any of these memories actually happen or is he trying so furiously to fill the gaps that they feel that way?  
   He cuts his hair short and can't keep his hands off the scar. His mouth is sticky and bright from sweets, trying to replicate the sweet taste sticking to his tongue when he wakes up. Reliving the incident again and again, he combs through every second of corrupted data, separates what he knows is real and tries anything to prove the rest, needing it all to mean something so badly that he refuses to let go, refuses to participate in the life he could have now.  
   For days, he's been trying to sleep, with no success. The hours that tick by lack meaning, and he feels his heart drop when he imagines never dreaming again, never understanding who or what _he_ is. Never knowing if it's someone he can be with in real life, someone who was there and would understand what he went through, or if he's created a world for himself that is unattainable. Delusional.  
   He looks down at his phone. Sees the number on the screen already and presses call thinking it's the first time today.


	5. Touch Me Not

   His phone is ringing loud in his ear and someone, sounds like his girlfriend, is screaming and pounding at the door. His brain feels painfully swollen and he doesn't want to be awake, not for this.  
   Eyes mostly closed, he lets her in without looking at her, doesn't want to see her boyish face and short black hair. He smells liquor as she walks by and wishes she would leave already. Shrieking fills his hollow apartment, but he's not listening. Why is she in his life? He just wants to lay down again. Fall asleep. Go back to _him_. Retching echoes from his bathroom and he checks his phone, deletes all the missed calls and messages without looking at them.  
   She brings two shotglasses to the bedside table. They sit on the edge of the bed and drink together for a while. It's fine. She wants to suck him off but he says no. She tries again a few minutes later and he tells her again, he's not interested. She gets mad. Demands to know what's wrong with him, does he even like her?  
   He doesn't have an answer.  
   Why doesn't anything make him happy? Why can't he just move on?  
   He doesn't have an answer.  
   Maybe someone else in that accident should have survived instead of him. What was the point if he wasn't going to do anything with his life?  
   He doesn't have an answer.  
   He's never had an answer.  
   Gray shadows cut vividly along the ceiling as she cries, yells, shatters the bottle of liquor on the ground. Breaks up with him a final time and slams the door on her way out. Numbly, he looks around his empty apartment before kicking his jeans off and forcing his eyes shut, hot tears stinging his face.  
_Muscle memory tells him he's sitting in the backseat of the convertible. He hardly ever dreams of the moments **before** and his heart begins to race. There's weight against him, someone sitting on his lap, legs open so that their thighs align with his, warm calves pressed against the outside of his knees. Head tipped back to rest against his shoulder, breath ghosting against his ear. Sehun shivers._  
_"Is there something wrong?"_  
_"You're beautiful." His eyes aren't even open. The dream laughs._  
_Arms arch up and over, hands landing flat against the nape of his neck, brushing over his short hair. Warm palms edge over his shoulders. Soft lips press dryly against his neck. Fingers intertwine with his and his heart pounds in his chest. Tears press behind his eyelids again and he aches thinking of the distance between this experience and the reality of his life._  
_"Is there something wrong?"_  
_"I-" Sehun chokes on nothing, really, on his own feelings, gagging on the way he's been twisted up, tangled in his own life, "I want you. Please, fuck, I want you so badly."_  
_Want means so many different things to Sehun, whose every waking thought is permeated by a deep, incessant wanting._  
_It means, I stopped myself from saying "to be real" at the end because I'm so tired of repeating myself;_  
_it means, I spent my formative years obsessing over the thought of you, you've twisted my every desire and you are so deeply embedded in who I am that I can't tell us apart any more;_  
_it means, I would do a n y t h i n g to be with you because I'm so fucking lonely, so tired of being unable to relate, unable to even hold a conversation with people, of trying and failing and realizing I can't be around others because I just don't understand them, I **can't** ;_  
_it means, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life and I need to see even more of you, I need to touch you and be with you because I've had sex before, I've thought that I was in love before, but I don't feel good unless I'm with you. I'm not happy when I'm not with you so I want **you**._  
_His hands touching skin does not feel like dream. Knees that are cool and rough- pliant, open thighs- warmth between his legs- he touches every inch of skin, he kisses that soft neck arched so delicately over his shoulder, moves his hands even higher, over the gentle skin of his stomach, to feel his chest and his ribs and to press firmly over his heartbeat, cherishing it. In love with the sound._  
_"Is there something wrong?" He realizes he's crying._  
_"No. Nothing is wrong." The dream smiles against his skin and moves to kiss him. His lips are soft and sweet like marshmallows, even through his salty, overwhelmed tears. They're facing each other now, and his arm curves so perfectly against the back of his neck. Everything is perfect. The taste on his tongue, the heat under his hands, the weight pressing against his hips._  
_They move more fervently, slick and hot against each other. Nausea overtakes him as his throat tightens, gasps for breath again and again, overcome by the sensation of skin against skin, by the weight of every moment outside this one, by **want**. His guts lurch inside his motionless body. Like a rollercoaster._  
_Like an orgasm._  
_Like a fucking car crash._  
   Sehun wakes up in a start, heart pounding, bathed in cold sweat. Thunder cracks outside and the bed is wet around him. He's shaking, still crying, fucking sobbing, doesn't know why he can't stop. Doesn't feel any better when he touches the stickiness on his stomach, presses against the blankets with his hands and realizes how soaked they are.  
   Upset, shaken, feverish, he thinks of nothing other than the time _before_. On autopilot, he strips his bed and takes a hot shower in an attempt to hate his human body less. Moving to his couch, he tries to sleep again but is unable. He relives the dream still, unready to leave it. Unwilling to leave it even though it is already gone.


	6. I've Been Dreaming About You, Too

   His feet are cold on his polished concrete floor and when he looks out the window, it's snowing.  
   A knock echoes through his apartment and he checks his phone. No calls or messages- it's probably someone he doesn't know.  
   "Who's there?"  
   "Uhm- I don't know if you remember me-" The voice echoes into his apartment- sounds a little like his own, but a little different too. His heart stutters in his chest and stops completely when he opens the door.  
   "Oh-"  
   An immense pressure tightens against his skin and the moment stretches on into infinity.

 _Someone is talking, and for a second he assumes it's himself. He's woken up talking to himself before._  
    _His neck hurts- so badly he can't turn his head. His whole body is incredibly stiff and sore, he doesn't feel like he can move at all._  
    _"You're his doctor, you know his medical history, OUR medical history, and you're not worred-" The voice walks away. His eyes slip closed again._

   "I'm scared."  
   "Of what?" They make eye contact and Sehun forgets what he was just looking at.  
   "Never seeing you again."  
   "Don't worry. We'll always be together." Sehun's face doesn't change. Those words just don't make him feel better any more.  
   "Please stop worrying. Have I ever lied to you before?"  
   "I don't kn-"

_He turns over, buries his face against the warm body in front of him. Wasted and tired, he can pretend it's the one he cares about even though it makes the back of his throat burn. He hasn't seen him in years but thinks about him every day. Knows his face, knows his voice, knows he wants nothing to do with him, and yet allows the thought of seeing him again to completely consume him._

   "What's this?" Looking at the glass on the table between them, his heart is pounding.  
   "Drink with me." There are two straws emerging from it, but the liquid inside is blue and doesn't look like something he should drink.  
   "I'll do anything you want me to." His hands are shaking so he puts them flat on the table. Gazing at the dream while they both put their lips to the straws, he sips nervously.  
   Relief rushes through him when it's sweet. Sweet like marshmallow candy. Closing his eyes, to really taste it, the world around him starts to spin.

 _Shaking himself awake, he looks out the window of the waiting room. Studies the bouquet in his lap, lightly rubs a petal between his thumb and finger._  
    _Finally, his name gets called by the nurse and he stands to follow._  
    _"Sorry for the wait, he is showing increased brain activity. The doctor wanted to try a few new treatments."_  
    _He nods, heart skipping a beat even though he had heard it before. Increased brain activity is always good._  
    _The hospital room is so familiar he dreams about it sometimes. The flowers next to the bed are still fresh, but he changes them out anyway. Wants them to be perfect when he wakes up- not if._  
    _Sitting next to his bed, he admires the divine planes of his face, tracks every little motion of his eyes behind his eyelids, the way his hands twitch, the slow rise and fall of his chest. Intertwining their fingers, he rests his head on his folded arms. He didn't want to cry but he does._

   "Don't be scared. We'll be together forever. Do you trust me?" The dream keeps looking him in the eyes and pushing the glass back into his hands even though he feels sick to his stomach.  
   "Of course I do. I love you." Happy with the response, he grins brightly, and continues insisting he drink.

 _"Why can't you leave it in the past?" He crumples a little farther, thought he could talk about this to the one person who would understand._  
    _"It was 12 years ago. It was horrible, maybe the worst thing that EVER happened to EITHER of us!! GET OVER IT!" A vice closes around his heart and he feels, after everything, like he's completely alone. Completely broken and unwanted because of it._  
    _"You have to move on. You can't- look, I'm done. I've said it all before. You just don't listen."_

   "I don't think I like this." Sehun pauses, queasy, but there is no reaction. "Why is it so important?"  
   "I think it will help you." He feels a little flutter in his chest, has hope, for the first time in so long, that an answer might be just around the corner.  
   "Do you know when you're awake and when you're dreaming?" Sweat wells up on his forehead and his chest feels like it's stuffed full of hot Styrofoam. Tries to gag a little but can't get anything to come up.  
   "I thought I did."

 _The world tilts at a 90 degree angle- he's fucking his boyfriend. Seeing his broad shoulders and short dyed hair makes him nauseous. He doesn't want to have sex with his best friend, he doesn't, but he didn't realize it wasn't him at first because they look so much alike. He keeps becoming involved with romantic partners that look just like him and he doesn't know how to make it stop._  
    _Getting wrapped up in someone else's life from a young age, being as close as twins without any actual relation, had turned out incredibly harmful for his development- on top of everything else._  
_He has no response when asked what's wrong._  
  _"Everything" isn't a good answer._

   "I feel really weird." Leaning heavily over the table, he realizes sweat is dripping off his face. His stomach turns over again. "This is fucking crazy. Am I awake right now?"  
   What he thought was a dream, doesn't answer. He's not sure what to think now.  
   "Am I? Am I? Am-"

 _"Why did you leave me behind?" He's talking to someone who isn't there._  
    _"I can't do this all by myself. I don't want to be alone." Pausing to wipe the tears off his face doesn't help because he hasn't stopped crying._  
    _"Please don't make me be alone anymore."_

   He wakes up and his bed is cold. The floor is cold on his feet and the window is cold when he presses his face to it. It's snowing outside.  
   Turning to look at the bed next to him, his neck hurts. He can't see the person there for all the flowers and balloons and boxes of home-made pillowy candies between them, and he has to think for a moment before realizing he hadn't stood up at all- he is still in his bed and likely to stay that way.  
   "Hey. Are you awake?"  
   "What's up?"  
   "I'm scared."  
   "Me too."  
   "Why did this happen to us?"  
   "I don't know." His voice is quiet, but distinct. It sounds a little like his own, but a little different too, "I want us to stay together."  
   "I'm afraid I won't remember you."  
   "I'll remember you. Do you trust me? You don't need to worry. I'll remember you." Sehun clings dearly to the voice filtering through the sweet scented air, clings dearly to the desperation he hears that mirrors his own, clings so dearly to the idea of this person next to him.  
   "I trust you."


End file.
